Would Mizzou be better off with K-Law?

UPDATE: Promoted from FanPosts for Front Page Friday.

To me, the obvious answer is, of course, absolutely. But how much better would we be? He was our second-leading returning scorer, I believe. And he'd be the only guy on our roster who could consistently shake down a defender off the dribble and create his own shot (Denmon and Taylor can to some extent, and I guess you could say Tiller and Good Leo do as well, but none of those four are as effective at that as Keon was/is). Plus, he was a long-armed guard who was one of our best pressers. He wasn't necessarily all that great in half-court defense because of his strength issues. But he was good in the pressure game and getting in passing lanes.

The only downsides to Keon were his apparent lack of mental stability/toughness. We'll never really know how much effort it took from Watkins/HCMA/Cleveland/Zimmerman and his teammates to try to keep him happy (I thought that once Hannah was off the roster that Keon would be happier, but apparently that wasn't the case). The other problem is just finding enough minutes for everyone. Keon probably pushes either Tiller or Taylor out of the starting lineup (or maybe Goose doesn't start this season, though he was a starter the last two years, so I don't know why having Keon would make that much difference to MLaw).

The promises of filling Keon's schollie with a higher-profile recruit aren't all that great at this point in time. I would imagine we'll try to find a juco big man to fill out one of the two remaining scholarships and we might even bank that last scholie for next year. Though Anderson's recruiting seems to be a little more on the DL than Quin's. So maybe he's got something cooking that we don't know about.

All in all, I think having Keon on this team would be a wonderful problem to have. I'd sure love to have him still. With him, I think it's a realistic expectation that we beat Xavier and Nebraska. Not sure anyone short of Michael Jordan could have helped us against Illinois.

I mean, we're doing all right without him, but since we did a couple "What Ifs" last week, I thought I'd throw that thought out there today. Your thoughts?